Mr. Kennedy Speaks On His Return and Injury/Career Setbacks

The Orlando Sentinel recently conducted an interview with WWE star Ken Kennedy. Below are some highlights, and you can read the entire interview at this link.

You mentioned injuries and the one you have right now which is a shoulder injury that has kept you sidelined since August. Youâ<80><99>ve been with the WWE for about four years now. Before you got there, I donâ<80><99>t think you ever had any major injuries. Since youâ<80><99>ve been there, youâ<80><99>ve had three. How difficult is that to not be a buzzkill and keep you down?

“Well, the schedule got increasinglyâ<80>¦Iâ<80><99>ve wrestled a lot more since Iâ<80><99>ve gotten to the WWE. Our schedule is a lot tougher than the independent schedule since we wrestle anywhere from three to seven days a week. Seven days a week when we do our overseas tour and, so, itâ<80><99>s just one of those things. The human body is not meant to be abused like that day in and day out. Things happen and I had some unfortunate set of circumstances happen two out of the three times. One time was just kind of a fluke injury and the other two times were kind of mistakes made in the ring. Hey, itâ<80><99>s just part of the game.”

With the injuries, was it just a simple thing because it seems that more often itâ<80><99>s the simplest things in wrestling where guys seem to get hurt the most often?

“The first time I was dropkicked off an apron and dropkicked very, very hard off an apron so I ended up flying through the air like the Matrix and I hit the concrete floor with my arm outstretched on my side and that just popped my lat right off the bone. With the second injury, it was one of those fluke things where Batista just gave me a clothesline and I took a back bump like Iâ<80><99>ve taken a million times before and I just felt my tricep pop. It can be anything on any given day. You look at some of the tapes, you look at some of the previous injuries for some of the guys. Triple H went to plant his foot and tore his quadriceps right off the bone.”

How is your rehab going and whatâ<80><99>s the timetable for your return?

“The rehab is going pretty good. Itâ<80><99>s slow going ï¿½” thereâ<80><99>s not a whole lot I can do right now. Iâ<80><99>m going to see Dr. Andrews and heâ<80><99>s going to give me an update and tell me how he wants me to start progressing my rehabilitation. He initially had told the office that I would be looking at a February 28 return date if everything goes well. Iâ<80><99>m going to cross my fingers and say a couple prayers, take my vitamins and drink my milk and hopefully Iâ<80><99>ll be back by then, maybe a little sooner.”

You mentioned Austin ï¿½” Iâ<80><99>ve heard that youâ<80><99>re a big fan of his and have become pretty close with him. What kind of advice has he given you?

“The nice thing about Steve is thatâ<80>¦Iâ<80><99>ve had a couple opportunities to sit down and watch my match with him. He would show up at a TV and they always have a tape of the match of the previous week so we would sit down and watch the match. It was pretty neat because he picks apart minor details that mean so much that the normal viewer canâ<80><99>t quite put their finger on but would mean so much more if that little piece of the puzzle was there. Thatâ<80><99>s kind of the stuff that he helps me with ï¿½” picking apart my matches and finding those little, minor details that make the match that much better.”